Tom Brosseau is a folksinger and songwriter from Grand Forks, North Dakota. He learned acoustic guitar from his grandmother, Lillian Uglem, and has since toured Japan, Canada, Portugal, England, Iceland, and Australia, performing in bars, backyards, grand halls, subways, theaters, and old folks homes, and exchanging songs and poetry with many talented folks, including Susan Orlean, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Patrick Marber, Bonnie Raitt, and the late Sam Hinton. Now based in Los Angeles, Tom has been a featured member of John Reilly & Friends, a band rounded up by actor John C. Reilly, devoted to celebrating the eternal nature of American folk music. He just released his seventh studio album, Grass Punks, which the Chicago Tribune praises for its “quietly seductive combination of acoustic stringed instruments, serene melodies, and pristine vocals,” and its “mixture of understatement and otherworldly wonder.”

Seattle’s Shelby Earl doesn’t hold back when she sings – or when she writes a song. Her voice is full-throated and strong, no whispers, no tip-toeing around the heart of the music. She digs in, with what Benjamin Gibbard, the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, calls “the most heartbreakingly beautiful voice in Seattle.” And her songs! The Los Angeles Times called her first album, Burn the Boats, “a classic work of songwriterly craft and beautifully framed confession. It’s a fully adult expression of lessons learned, loss absorbed, and hope rebuilt, plank by plank.” The website No Depression describes the songs on her second and latest album, Swift Arrows, as sounding “as though they've been recorded at the desert church of doo-wop, with angelic female harmonies, rhythmic piano, and acoustic guitar.” The folks at Amazon.com named Burn the Boats, the “#1 Outstanding Album You Might Have Missed in 2011.” Swift Arrows made more than a dozen “Best of 2013” lists, including lists from the Seattle Times, Indie-Music.com, and Buzznet. The accolades have been outstanding, but the music, in person, is even better.